


Switch

by EllieRose101



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: F/M, Season/Series 06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-09
Updated: 2018-08-09
Packaged: 2019-06-24 03:00:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15621048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllieRose101/pseuds/EllieRose101
Summary: A spell. A change of heart.





	Switch

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for brief discussion of self-harm.

One Shot 

He woke up first – in her body, and not in the usual way. For all the sleeping together they’d been doing, this was the first time she’d actually fallen asleep and stayed, afterwards. And for all of the times he’d been inside her, this was totally new; totally terrifying. He looked across at himself then shook her awake.

She jolted when her eyes opened and saw herself. Saw him.

“Spike?!” she said – half screamed – looking down at the body she was in. “What the hell?!” Pulling the covers more firmly around herself, she also succeeded in taking them from him, but that wouldn’t do. Not now. Half throwing them back at him, she gazed again at the bare flesh she was trapped in. There was strength in it, and opportunity, but she couldn’t afford to get distracted. The largest part of her was still freaking the hell out. Her eyes searched for answers – searched for truth in the eyes he was looking out of.

“Don’t look at me, pet,” he told her. “I’ve got no bloody clue what’s goin’ on.”

Her chest tightened. Or, _his_ chest - whatever. It was so weird to hear his words come from her mouth, in her accent. To her small relief, though, he didn’t look happy. “You didn’t do this?”

He was indignant as he snatched up his clothes, but the anger seeped out of him again when he had to face the humility of switching them with hers. He’d really taken a shine her new halter-top when she’d arrived at his crypt the night before wearing it. Now, though, he saw where his hands – his real hands – had torn it. Ruined it. He closed his eyes, hating everything that he was.

She gulped down a breath and reasoned with herself. If she wanted Spike on side, she’d have to be nicer to him – and wouldn’t that be a novelty? Instinct told her she couldn’t do this alone.

“Where are you going?” she asked, in a voice that was both painfully small, and horribly masculine. How was he able to make it so silky when he used it?

He was going to ignore her new question, same as the first one, but something stopped him. Maybe it was the sound of her voice. She’d conveyed fear in it and it grated on him. He’d refused to make known his fear a long time ago, when it was the greatest weapon Angelus had against him, and he was mad that she’d released fear back into the air from his mouth – forced it out where it didn’t belong. But, forgetting that – pushing aside his anger – she was scared, and that said a lot. He couldn’t let her be alone in this. He wouldn’t. Damn bint would probably take his skin out for a joy ride just to spite him, he thought, warily, except… No. Some awful memory came back to him, and he vowed to play nice.

“Goin’ upstairs for a drink,” he finally answered.

She jumped out of bed and ran after him, reaching the ladder as he stepped onto it.

“A drink?” she balked. “A drink of what?” She saw him look confused for a moment before some other knowledge flashed in his eyes. She saw temptation flash there, too, briefly, then resignation.

He slumped his shoulders. Of course he couldn’t have blood. Neither of them wanted it to taint her pretty lips. Okay, well, maybe his demon did, but it didn’t get a soddin’ opinion.

“Scotch?” he offered, by way of consolation. “I bloody well need _something_.”

She wrinkled her nose, pouted her lips, then heaved a sigh and raised a hand, palm upwards, silently telling him to go ahead with this new plan.

He was looking at her oddly again, and she didn’t like it. Now she thought about, a pout and a wrinkle of the nose probably looked weird on him.

“God, I can’t even check a mirror, can I?!”

He stopped again – this time halfway up the ladder – but she prodded him and he eventually completed the ascent.

She questioned him about the hesitation as he poured the drinks.

“I was just thinkin’,” he said. “I’m still a vamp. Can still feel the demon.”

Her hands went to her hips. “Yeah, and?”

“And if the vamp part came with me on this little trip, you should probably have a reflection in that skin just fine.”

She chewed the thought over. “Okay. Let’s try it out.”

“Can’t,” he said.

Hands went to hips. “What?”

“I don’t own a soddin’ mirror, Slayer.”

“Ugh!” She sat down, focusing her eyes on clenched fists that were covered in scratches. Had she put them there? She couldn’t remember.

He passed her a drink and watched her swallow it down in one go, prompting yet another horrid little thought: _I wonder if this has made me a lightweight bein’ all… light in weight._ He shook his head, proclaiming, “We gotta fix this.”

She nodded. For the first time in a really long time, she agreed with him wholeheartedly. “One thing, though,” she said, her own mind racing off.

“Yeah?”

“Which one of us can go out in sunlight?”

He cursed.

She stood up again, then staggered.

He caught her but she flinched away.

“Oh, so I can’t touch you now?”

“No,” she said, the answer definitive. “It’s… wiggy.”

His nostrils flared. “This ain’t a picnic for me either, princess.”

She glared back at him, held the look for a moment, then sighed and looked away. “Are we gonna try out the sun thing? We could get Giles.”

He contemplated the idea, reigning in his frustration.

“Well, I don’t have a phone. Trying to leave is the only way we can raise the alarm; get some help.”

She nodded but neither of them moved.

Buffy released a pitiful whimper from his lips. With so much chaos in her life already going on, why did she have to deal with stupid body-switching spells, as well? Who hated her that much?

He looked at his body intently, taking the opportunity granted to him by way of the Slayer getting lost in her thoughts and not paying attention to his gaze. Having spent so long with no reflection, it was an eternity since he’d actually gazed upon himself. The experience was tainted by the grief Buffy was pouring out through every pore of his rightful skin. Despite himself, it softened his heart.

She refocused her attention, caught him staring but didn’t shy away from the look the same as she’d done with his touch.

“How about we wait this out?”

Spike nodded and they went back to the lower level. He felt exhausted, and it wasn’t from the long hours of arduous sex they’d engaged in before waking up to the present situation. It was emotional lethargy. He was about to ask what she wanted to do – if she wanted to go back to sleep – when…

She jumped on him, mouths and limbs connecting.

He pushed her off; stared at her in disgust while she just stood there, her head tilted off to one side.

“Y’know, you don’t have to play my part in this whole scenario so well,” she said, and he could tell that’d he’d really injured her ego, underneath all the sarcasm.

He sighed and ran a hand through his hair, becoming all the more perturbed when all he felt was her silky locks.

She looked away, trying to hide the fact that there were tears in her eyes. God, the day was awful; the week; her entire existence. She’d been sure the one thing she could count on in this weird screwy universe was Spike wanting her. And now, what, he was just too freaked? She shook her head, knowing it was something else – something more than that – but what?

He took a step closer to her; placed a hand on her shoulder and leaned his face in closer to her ear. “Let’s not go repeatin’ old mistakes now, eh?”

Buffy backed away, her eyes wide. “What are you talking about? You were all _Team Us_ , and now you’re saying we’re a mistake?” She didn’t have words to express the betrayal she felt.

Spike rolled her eyes skyward, took in a deep breath, then focused his gaze again.

“No, you nit. The…” he hesitated, not wanting to say it – not wanting to remind her – but she wasn’t getting it; had no bloody clue why he was saying no and, god help him, he didn’t do such things lightly – even if the situation was beyond his very liberal definition of normal.

“You told me,” he began again, “About the last time someone went walkin’ around your skin. About what happened and how…” the sentence trailed off again before he could finish ‘ _how violated you felt_.’

“I don’t want to do that to you, Buffy.”

This time when she reeled away, it was instinctual. Her stomach turned at his words. “How could you think–?” she sputtered. “How is this the same?”

He was at a loss.

“It’s not,” he conceded. “But similar enough, right? Sometimes the mind ain’t right logical. It doesn’t care that things are different. They feel…” he shook his head. “Nevermind. I was tryin’ to do you a favor, is all.”

She looked at him in a new way – saw him more clearly, despite the circumstances. Then, in a softer tone, she asked, “If I was making comparisons and remembering… _that_ , what makes you think I’d be wanting to go there again?”

There was sadness in his eyes as he left the question to be answered by heavy silence, knowing she already knew the answer.

Buffy’s eyes welled up again, but she wasn’t for giving herself over to crying. Not yet. She wasn’t done fighting.

“You really think I hate myself that much?”

Once more, Spike didn’t answer. He didn’t have to – the knowledge of that breaking them both just that little bit more.

“Oh, god!” Buffy wailed. “Is that what I’ve become? Someone who would abuse my own body just to– just to–!” She couldn’t finish. Now the tears fell, as full realization dawned on her.

A big part of her had wanted solace, pure and simple, but on some subconscious level, another part wanted to use the opportunity to literally fuck herself up. It was like the ultimate in supernatural self-harm, to be able to pin yourself down and pound and pound until there was nothing left but physical exhaustion deep enough to match the mental ache.

And he’d realized. He’d known, and he’d been thinking about her; neither one of them giving a first thought to how he might feel, during or after, let alone a second one.

She felt sick.

He took a firm grip of her upper arms and pressed her tightly to his chest, not letting go or lessening his grip until she’d stopped shuddering. Then, when she finally began to quiet, she made a request.

Not looking at him, she said, “Will you just hold me?”

They lay down in silence.

He held her the whole day through.

Upon waking up, the night fresh between them, they were back in their own skin, but everything had changed.

She was the one not letting go.

Silently, Buffy looked Spike deep the in the eye as she moved down his body to take his length in her mouth.

His instinct was to stop her – to remind her that he’d seen the deepest recesses of her soul, and that they were about more than mere sex, now – but it was the look she’d given him beforehand that sealed it.

She knew what she was doing and she wasn’t shying away.

It wasn’t just sex for her anymore, either.

Having walked around in his skin, first hand, she’d felt the tension; the ache of knowing that it wasn’t satisfied.

Sure, he’d gotten his rocks off just as much as her the past few weeks, but he’d been left cold during. The whole time, she never touched him just to touch him. His own needs were a by-product. But this…

Her lips pressed along the base, causing him to release a long breath. This was just for him. This was gratitude and an apology, wrapped together in a neat little action. For one minute, he dared to hope that love might be a key ingredient, too.

“Spike?” she whispered against his flesh.

“Yeah, Pet?” he answered, his voice low; not taking his eyes off her.

Leaving the conversation dangling there, she didn’t voice either the thanks or the sorry, but he heard it loud and clear nonetheless.

“Didn’t you know this body belonged to you, all along?” he asked, once the deed was done – his body sated and heart whole.

She smiled up at him, in answer.


End file.
